675 Rene Serbon:

Who doesn’t want to be liked? Of course, we all do. Problem is, if we set out in business to please everyone all of the time, we can end up pleasing no one, including ourselves. There’s a fine line between the necessity of creating great relationships in business – with your team, your customers, your vendors – and taking business, every no, every failure personally.  Like My guest today – Rene Serbon – who is a pioneer in the technology of beauty and skincare, shares what she’s learned along the way building a 7-figure business.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Ok so let’s get to it. Today we’re going to dig deep into the skincare and beauty space with Rene Serbon, an inspiring entrepreneur who founded Dermal Systems over a decade ago to revolutionize the skincare space with a holistic approach. Rene variously provides education and business mentoring for her industry, with innovative ways for beauty experts to thrive and grow their business to new heights as well as distribution services and her own prescriptive and customizable skincare products. She’s on a mission to show beauty professionals they don’t have to sacrifice profitability to pursue their passion for healthy and customizable solutions, and today she shares the inside skinny on her industry, new innovations in the technology of skincare, what she learned along the way, and much more. Rene will be here in a minute – first…

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René Serbon is world-renowned skin expert, who always had the entrepreneurial spirit, even as a young kid. She started out focused in marketing before discovering her true passion for aesthetics, earning coveted credentials from laser and electrolysis, IPL and more, including the Pastiche Method of Advanced Skin Analysis. Rene also serves on the board of education for the International Association For Applied Corneotherapy.

Today we learn all about common mistakes most women are making when it comes to their skin care – plus the benefits of corneotherapy – and what she learned along the way building her business.

Be sure to join Rene and me after the episode on Podopolo where you can share your perspectives and ask Rene for her advice on everything from skin care to entrepreneurship. Now let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Rene Serbon.

Melinda Wittstock:

Rene, welcome to Wings.

Rene Serbon:

Thank you for having me. I’m ready to fly with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. I know. And I love flying with pioneers. It sounds like you are one. Take us through the nitty gritty of corneotherapy. What is it?

Rene Serbon:

I know. Try to twist your tongue around that. Okay. Corneo is the very, very outermost layer of your skin, okay? We have the epidermis, and that skin cell that’s about to flake off, that is called a corneocyte. It’s not the eyes. Therapy, the therapy of skin. So, corneotherapy is my scientific approach towards skin and treatment and also in recommendations for home care. What it means in a nutshell is basically that it is an approach or a treatment methodology to skin in which we aim to protect the epidermis, or outer most layer of the skin, at all times. Instead of doing what our industry typically does, which is usually peeling it, lasering it off, being very ablative and harsh towards the skin, corneotherapy’s approach is to actually do the opposite and protect the outermost layer of the skin, first and foremost, protect your skin barrier function, and then bring in anything that we need to do to correct different skin conditions and/or disorders.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah. Yeah, because when you go for a facial, you have all these peels, and micro dermabrasion. You can leave a facial, yeah, feeling like your face has been beaten up a little bit, right?

Rene Serbon:

Exactly. I think the thing is that we want people to take pause and really understand when and if certain points of intervention for the skin is needed. We’re not saying never do any of this to the skin, but you got to make sure that the skin is healthy to begin with. You’re always going to get better results by doing any treatments on a healthier skin. So it makes very logical scenes to repair skin barrier first and then bring in other modalities that might stimulate or regulate cellular activities, is how I describe it.

I’m going to explain this in layman’s terms. Our skin is designed to protect us from the outside world, right? But there’s five fundamental layers in our army, shall we say? The very first one is what we call the acid mantle or microbiome. That microbiome is something that’s very often mentioned now. Dove is talking about protecting your microbiome, and the pH of 5.5 that we’ve been drilled in our heads through marketing. So, we want the outside of the skin to be slightly acidic because bacteria can’t function in that zone. So, it protects us from bacteria at a very basic level, but also other allergens, pathogens, and so forth from entering the skin.

The second line of skin barrier defense is this thing called the corneocyte that I just mentioned. Now, he is going to talk to the rest of your skin. For example, when you’re in the sun, it will send a little message to a guy called the melanocyte to say, “Hey, I’m in sun. We need to create pigment, a tan, to protect us from the elements that we are now in.” And then the third line is something called the multilaminar structure, which is basically a balance of water and oil in your skin.

Now, skin is designed to repair, so it repairs really quickly but you can, especially on a more sensitive or delicate skin, you can really create a vicious cycle of causing lots of irritation and inflammation in the skin and even trigger some skin disorders. So I would say, take a pause, not all skins need to be scrubbed. Skin is a living organ and not the kitchen floor. If it squeaks like the kitchen floor, you have stripped your skin, and that can often be the beginning of other things going wrong, a little bit of a domino effect.

Melinda Wittstock:

There are things like micro needling, which is suddenly really hot. What do you think about that? Does that have the same stripping out thing? Because it’s really injecting all these things into your skin, potentially, like extra collagen.

Rene Serbon:

Yeah. I love micro needling, also known as collagen induction therapy. What it is just little micro needles. I explain it to people like a little mini roller brush, if you will, that you just roll over the skin, and a clinical version will have a mechanical one that we do that in the clinic. What it does is it actually stimulates the skin. The best way to explain it is if you write a lot or you learn how to write, how your skin gets stronger where you hold the pen, it almost builds a bit of a callous. So, a dermal needling is kind of working on that similar principle that it’s like a irritant to the skin triggering what we call a controlled wound-healing process. And any wound healing will have collagen involved. So it stimulates the synthesis of collagen production. Collagen, elastin, glycosaminoglycans. I love it. I call dermal needling or collagen induction therapy, it’s like over time putting a full-time, awesome Instagram filter on your face. It refines and tweaks everything. Additional to that, it helps your products absorb into the deeper layers of your skin because you’ve just created these microchannels that the product just immediately drop through.

Now, if your skincare line doesn’t have the best carriers to get the products or the active ingredients into the deeper layers of the skin, that’s a big bonus, but it’s not the aim of micro needling. Micro needling is great for open pores, fine lines, wrinkles, scarring. I love it. It doesn’t take your skin layers off, so we call it a non-ablative approach, which I love. It also doesn’t have heat associated with the treatment, so it’s safe for more skin colors, which is awesome. Because heat can be damaging to skin of higher or darker skin tones.

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s so much technology and fast technology advances going on in beauty, and it can be confusing for consumers to know what’s right. You look at your Instagram feed and there’s so many things. And so, how is a consumer supposed to know? Because there’s so much confusion…

Rene Serbon:

It is. It’s a great question. I’ll be the first to just apologize on behalf of my industry because, honestly, we confuse ourselves. There’s so much information, and every other week there’s another new fancy, blingy, shiny thing that we all chase. This issue in our industry, so don’t tell my industry this, everybody, but I’ll just pull open the curtains here, there’s a lot of pressure to do all the things for all the clients, which I think is a very slippery slope. So, yes, we are absolutely confusing even ourselves. I think this is why I love the training that I do and the education that I personally pursue as well. To me, it comes back down to science, what fundamentally scientifically builds up or is necessary for the skin to function the way that it should to protect us from the outside elements, essentially, how do we keep the skin healthy at any age, and then we can bring in more corrective things.

To me it’s like, “Okay, what are the things that we fundamentally need and then the wish list that we want to chase.” Let me tell you, the thing that we get asked a lot is about aging and pigmentation. Aging, it’s inevitable. I look at my clients and say, “Is what I’m seeing in the skin age appropriate?” Cells all die at the end of the day. I’m sad to sound so harsh, but it’s just the truth. What we want is that to be as optimal as it can be at any point in time and be age appropriate. We don’t want to accelerate this process. I think some wrinkles are earned, so embrace it to a certain extent.

But I’m not saying neglect the skin. We have amazing tools from technology available to use at our advantage. But you got to work with somebody who can really analyze your skin deeply, understand everything. When I do an advanced skin analysis on somebody, I’m taking everything about you into consideration, your genetic history, your skin tone and color. We’re going to talk about the medications that you’ve had, your sun exposure over a lifetime. I call it the confessional. You come in, you tell me all the things, everything you’ve ever done in your life up until that point. When we have all the pieces of the puzzle together, now I can look, what are the contraindications that the individual in front of me has towards specific treatments that we might be considering as part of the treatment plan? And they’re not all positive for everybody. There is no magic wand that is the same that I can go bang and solve all your problems, because everybody is so individual.

I love the individual approach and really establishing what the underlying cause are to skin disorders or conditions, so that when we understand that, that is when we can put really scientifically sound things in place that talk to the cells and systems involved in contributing to the condition, so that we can get long-term sustainable outcomes for our clients. Unlike the rest of my industry, I’m a fan. If you can do it at home, then that’s where I’d rather you spend your money than being on my treatment bed. I tell people, “70% of the end result is what you do at home on a daily basis. Your aesthetician or your physician, they’re going to bring that extra 30%. But even if you do the 30% in clinic, if you’re not supporting it at home with the right stuff, I know from a clinical point of view I’m not going to get the same level of results when you do come and visit me.” It’s like your dentist visit. You got to brush a different floss, and then your dental visit is even more amazing. Basics, you got to do the basics.

Melinda Wittstock:

So Rene, what got you into the beauty industry to begin with? How did you get your start?

Rene Serbon:

I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit. My mother will tell you stories that, frankly, make my hair stand up sometimes. But I have always been entrepreneurial, and I actually went to university to do business studies with my major in marketing. But as the true entrepreneurial spirit in me will contest, I was doing homeschooling for the last three years of schooling. So, I had a lag between what we call matriculating or finishing high school to the intake of university in New Zealand. I was living in New Zealand at the time. I thought to myself, okay, came across this nail technology course, of all things, and thought, “Oh my goodness, this will be amazing because I can go and do the nail technology course, and then I can set up a little business, a side hustle, and I can go and do people’s nails at their homes and set up my own schedule to support myself through university.”

I ended up working in a clinic, and then, now I joke and say I got bitten by the beauty bug. Because it was really is if you walk into clinics, you often see the nails being done close to the reception area. So, I saw ladies come in to have the facials. They’ll disappear into the treatment room of the esthetician that was working there, and then they come back out but they’re walking a whole inch or too taller and just the extra pep in their stride. And I was like, “Fascinating. Fascinating.” Because it was like very much learning about consumer behavior and all these things. So I was like, “Wow, that’s really amazing.” And then over time as you work there, you see the transformation in people. The biggest example for me was the acne clients when they came in, and when there’s improvement in their skin, that confidence that was just blossoming. I was fascinated by that.

I come from a family of medical professionals, so, the science side of stuff always intrigued me. And so I said to my mom, “I want to help people feel comfortable and more confident in their own skin.” And now in my work that I do today, that also translates not just for the end consumer people that I work with, the skins that I actually touch, but also translating that into helping my clinic clients help their clients achieve that. And you see that transforming into their business confidence as well. Just being confident and comfortable in their own skin, I think goes a long way. And to me, that’s the biggest reward of what I do, is if you can help somebody just be a bit more confident and believe in themselves a bit more, then to me that is like the things that money can’t buy, and it’s the most rewarding thing even if I’m part of that just for a millisecond in the bigger scheme of things. To me, that’s just wonderful. I love seeing people blossom and strive and accomplish things that they don’t think they could or didn’t have the confidence to accomplish.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s amazing. I love people’s entrepreneurial stories because somewhere it’s in our DNA as kids. And so, what were some of the biggest lessons for you along the way, challenges, I guess,? Because obviously, you can hear it in your voice, you’re so passionate about what you do. Let’s take apart your entrepreneurial journey, if you will, and what it took to build what you’ve built.

Rene Serbon:

Yeah. I think especially in our industry, estheticians and dermatologists and cosmetic physicians by nature are people who are givers, carers. My industry really struggles with if you tag the word sale into the profile. To them like, “Oh, I have to sell.” And so, I’m having a lot of conversations with people to say, “Do you know what? When you sell to somebody from a point of education,” so I want people to make educated decisions about what they’re spending money on, whether it be for their skin or anything else, I’m like, “it’s in service. It’s in service of people.” For me, I’ve seen that all through my life. When I was doing my homeschooling for my last three years of high school, my mom and her friend at that point in time had a little side hustle of clothes that they were selling to people. And then they decided it’s just too much because they all had three kids and all these things.

I said to them, “Perfect. I’m going to take over your clothes.” I started a little shop next to, we call it, a little village that we had that had a lovely cafe and so forth with it. I rented a 10 by 10 foot, teeny tiny little square space in a shopping village. I just took my schooling and I parked my behind at the little desk that I set up and I sold their clothes that they had until we had nothing left and I had to leave for university finally. I just thought to myself, “Do you know what? This is the thing. If you lead and service and you establish how you can fulfill the needs for people or how you can help them solve problems, then anything can be a business, as long as you are passionate about it and you have the tools to help somebody solve whatever the problem at hand is.

So that for me was early on. I remember packing things to go and sell at morning markets, craft shows and stuff like that because I’m quite crafty as well. I did that with my sister for a little while. I think one of the biggest thing as well is the more you worry about what everybody else is thinking and how they’re going to view you and perceive you, you’re never going to get ahead with that. You literally have to filter and block that out. I think as females we’re very challenged in keeping other people’s opinions outside of our mind. I actually have on my board in front of me in my office a poster that says, “What other people think of me is none of my business.” Because that’s a tough thing.

And then I think in my industry as well, one of the disappointing things as I entered the industry, I didn’t anticipate a female-driven industry, essentially, to be so harsh. My goodness, it’s like the competitive nature of it is very saddening. So that’s one thing that I focus a lot on. I want a community where we all support each other, stand on each other’s shoulders, champion each other, because growth is in collaboration. And just because somebody else who’s doing something similar, even very close to what you do, doesn’t mean that you can also not achieve success in that. There is enough room under the sun for all of us. So that’s for women in particular, I think just be kind, support each other, and understand that you don’t have to compare yourself of anybody else’s journey. You are where you’re meant to be. Yes, that external noise can be deafening and crippling.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh, it’s so true. We discuss so often on this podcast what prevents women from really, playing a bigger game… Just daring to really live and jump into their wildest dreams. There’s a lot of women who plateau out at the six figures, only 3% make it to a million dollars or more in revenue. What do you think that is? What holds us back or makes us dim our light or just not just go full throttle into building big businesses?

Rene Serbon:

Okay, now I’m going to have to align this to what I see in my own work quite frequently. So, I see this messaging start really early on, and I see it often, I’m going to use acne clients as an example, teenage acne and the girls will come in and they barely want to look me in the eye because they’re so embarrassed of what’s going on in their skin. And then I try to explain to them in a condition like that, in particular, stress and anxiety really doesn’t help it. It’s both a psychological and a physiological condition. So yes, hormones play a role in that. And I’ll say to the young men and women who come in, but women in particular, and say to them, “Okay, let’s just lay this on the table. You have acne. This is just part of the hormonal transition, and it’s not a forever thing. But how you choose to respond to this can become a forever thing.”

And some days I think I should have gone and studied psychology because it’s probably not my place to have this conversation with the ladies, but I just want to encourage them and say, “The spots that you have on your face right now is not who you are. It’s just a thing that you’re experiencing right now.” So when they can separate their own internal identity from the thing that’s going on, it’s not who they are, it’s just, as they say, the thing that’s happening or the situation that they have to deal with. And I think you can translate that to anything.

And that’s where I think that men are particularly good. My husband, for example, he’s very grounded like that. And he will tell me often as like, “I don’t brown nose other people.” “You got to be nice.” And he’s like, “No, if they don’t like me, I don’t have to work with them.” And he’ll filter his clients really. He will not work with people that he doesn’t get along with or doesn’t like, so if they have a undertone that is just like, “This is not a match.” And I think that’s wonderful. You don’t have to get along with everybody. You have to be respectful and kind to everybody, but you don’t have to be everybody’s cup of tea. So, I think understanding that early on because I’m a people pleaser, of course I want everybody to like me and what I have to offer and stuff, but the more I embrace that I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, that is fine. When I can shake that off, it’s better for me and my business.

My business always flourishes when I’m really less concerned about that. And my family is always more happier and we do more fun things when I’m less concerned about everybody else’s stuff. Yeah, if you want to do the thing, do it, what’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t work out, then you try a different way to do it. Nobody is going to remember the stuff that failed. People remember the stuff that works. Failing is just a lesson to learn how to do things better.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, absolutely. I’ve always thought failure is feedback. If I look back at my entrepreneurial career, five businesses now, I have learned more from the failures or challenges than I have from the things that have come easy. It’s all those things that provide you with the information and the feedback to grow. It’s getting into alignment with accepting that and not taking it personally.

Rene Serbon:

Oh, yes. Yes. Don’t let it get under your skin. I love you saying that. Yes. I’m writing that down.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so true. And so, the aspect of your business where you’re helping other folks in the beauty industry, I mean, how much of it is in addition to all the education about the beauty industry and about these advances in technology and this, I guess, contrarian approach that you have, right? In addition to that, how much is it around mindset and really helping people get past, I guess, their own blocks?

Rene Serbon:

Oh, so much, especially as a owner of a business like this. And let’s be real, my industry is very much about presentation. There’s no two ways of getting around that. But I say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and beauty or the perception of beauty really is more than just the physiology of what the skin is looking like. Any skin is beautiful. Skin health has a gut brain and skin connection. Those organs all work together to have healthy skin. But let me tell you, in my industry, skin conditions, even things like rosacea is intricately intertwined with our internal voice, shall I say, anxiety about all these things. So, the calmer and the more healthier we are and kinder we are of our self, skin is always responsive to that.

So the mental game, as on entrepreneurs in this industry, is exactly this competitive edge thing because everybody wants it shiny and blingy and things like that and wants to do all the things because you’re scared that you’re going to lose business to the clinic down the street. And this is where I’m saying, “Okay, take a pause and identify what you stand for.” In any industry, and you would know this, you’ve been an entrepreneur of five businesses, you don’t have to do things the same way as the next person. That’s not how people really see you and are attracted to you. The minute that I decide that I’m dropping all grooming services as an aesthetician, I love grooming services, but I haven’t done it for many years now, but I wanted to be known as a person A game at corrective skin treatments.

I can correct very difficult skin conditions and I’m really, really, really good at it. So that’s all I’ve done for the last 12 years. I do nothing but spend my time on very difficult skin conditions, and I love it. It means that I don’t work a day in my life. I just show up and do the things that I love. And that is when business exploded, when I really embraced what I stand for is corrective skin science. I let go of the waxing and all of the laser things, hair removal, and all of that. Somebody else can be great for that. That’s not my real and what I mean to do. I believe in this lifetime my calling is corrective skincare and breaking that down in easy-to-understand ways for people in my industry to help their clients achieve healthy skin at any age and have that confidence to have systems and procedures and ask your clients to show up in a certain way so that you can best serve them.

I’m also very, very good at helping people understand that you can ask your consumers how to show up for you and have systems and processes in place to treat people at the very best level that you can. In other words, when you have systems in place, it means that you’re not missing key information in a transformation for a client. And it’s okay to say no if people don’t want to follow that and that makes it really systemically different for you to duplicate A game results all the time. So, just like we filter and interview people who we might want to work with and contract for different things in our businesses, I do the same from a client perspective. You don’t have to work with everybody and take money from everybody. I work with people who want me to help them in my zone of genius and doing things the way that I know is the process that’s going to give them the results that they pay me for. Yes, and filtering all that out. A no is just another step to the next yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’ve told the story so many times on my podcast, but I remember a mentor telling in a sales context to go out and get as many ‘no’s’ as possible. It was counterintuitive, but what it meant was to get a no I actually had to ask for the sale.

Rene Serbon:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And the shame or the fear of a no, right, was removed from it because it was actually part of my performance metrics to go get as many ‘no’s’ as possible, right? And so, the ‘no’s’ really quickly started to turn into yeses. It was liberating.

Rene Serbon:

Well, what I train people in advanced skin analysis, this is what I say, “We want to lead with value. We want people to learn something that can last them beyond that one-hour consultation that they’re having with you, that they can utilize down the road.” And then we simply lay out, “This is the issues that we have discovered. This is your skin type. This is the things that you need and that I offer that that can help you get to the outcome that you want. And here’s the services that we want to do.” I just tell people my professional recommendation, like the doctor’s going to go, “You know what? This is your health concern, and you are going to need this antibiotic.” They don’t go and go, “Oh, but there’s a variety of antibiotics you could choose from, and this one’s going to be cheaper and this one’s going to be more expensive.”

No, they don’t do that. They go, “This is what you need to fix that problem.” So I say typical, “Just try and do that.” It’s like you identified what they need to get the outcome that they came to you for, and you just need to tell them what that is. It’s up to them to go and fill the prescription or not. This is where you then have to step away. You’ve done your professional obligation. You’ve given them the recommendations. I’m not my client’s financial advisor, they have to make the decision to say yes or no, and it has nothing to do with me no matter what the answer is. If the answer is yes, I’m in it. It’s a partnership, I’m with you all the way. But if the answer is no, that’s fine. It’s not a personal thing. When they’re ready to work with me, they’ll come back and they do. I don’t know if you see that as well, but people do come back when they’re ready to work with you if I’m honest and gave them all the information that they can make an informed decision with.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, yeah, it’s like when the student is ready, the teacher appears. People can tell you information over and over and over again, but if you’re not ready to hear it, if you’re not moving to that. The best entrepreneurs are always curious. They’re lifelong learners. And it’s about opening yourself up to that learning that’s vital. I joke that you have a choice in life. You can be right, or you can be rich. What I mean by that is we can get so attached to our own sense of what we think is right that we close ourselves off to new knowledge, new opportunities, new ways of putting ourselves out there, that lessens our capacity to really innovate or really grow great businesses. So which one do you want to be? Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be rich?

Rene Serbon:

Well, this is so true. Okay, so this is why I say to people as like, “I’m a high-earning aesthetician.” Let’s they just put it that way. And this is part of that mental game that I have to really help my clients break the mold. It’s like you’ve got to charge what you’re worth, and if you spend a lot of money on continuous learning, which I actually only work in my industry with the people who continuously learn, my goodness, this is an industry that grows like 30% a year. Things change all the time. The science is moving. If you’re not learning, you’re not my gal. I’m sorry. All guys, sometimes. I work with me as well. But you got to be invested in continuous education, otherwise, my tribe is not for you. You’re just not going to resonate with me anyway.

Rene Serbon:

So yes, big thing. I talk with people all the time, it’s like, “Charge what you’re worth.” I mean, I go to New Zealand, Germany, Taiwan… Where else have I been? All these places that I speak at conferences, I attend conferences. I’m always learning and teaching. It’s a two-way stream. I cannot be teaching in my industry if I’m not also willing to be learning continuously. But if you’re chasing all of that and you’re making that investment in yourself, charge what you’re worth. This is an industry that is really, really, really on that fence of minimum wage income for many, many institutions, and it breaks my heart. I work with a lot of people who want to do better. They’re not happy with minimum wage, and I don’t think we should be. We all deserve to earn the income that we have the capacity to earn, so I’m-

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, especially true given the high margin markups in the beauty industry and how much women spend on beauty, skincare, makeup, all of it, huge sums of money. In a way it’s interesting to me, and it always has been, that women still by-and-large earn less than men but we spend more on beauty, fashion, whatever, right?

Rene Serbon:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

So looking at it through that lens as you’re trying to advocate for a way for folks in the industry to really get paid their due, what do you think has to change? And is it open to changing?

Rene Serbon:

I think institutions have to validate their own background or education themselves. It’s a two-way thing this perception from the public, in my opinion, because I’ve lived this myself and had to really break through this myself. But I remember working in a clinic just after I graduated where the very rich and famous people in town would come and really talk down to me as like a aesthetician, you’re just an a aesthetician, and this assumption that I know nothing but how to wax your legs. And then I’m like, “But you’re here for my professional skill to wax your legs without breaking your hair and giving you ingrown hairs and these things.” It just didn’t fathom to me, so I was like, “What is this?”

But you see that messaging in our industry quite a lot, and that’s why I say to people, “It’s up to us to up our own game and not just talk about pimple to people.” No, use the proper terminology to showcase the education that you have undertaken. It’s a pustule, it’s a comedone, not a blackhead. Talk properly. Talk a slightly higher, more educated version of the layman’s terms and explain to people. Power is in knowledge. This is the era of knowledge. So, educate your clients along with you so that they can understand what it is that you actually know when you think pustule, pimple to them, what is the process? In your mind, you got to see this whole process of what is forming the pustule to begin with.

There’s neutrophils involved and all the cells and system. It’s a healing response that is triggered by the inflammation of the lesion. You got to explain a little bit more than just the average lingo that we’ve used in our industry. And only then can we elevate ourselves. You have to claim what you know. So, I had to showcase that to my clients, and now I teach people in our industry to showcase that to people. We’re all different levels of education. This is the thing in North America in particular, is the different levels of education from that base learning that we do is drastically different from state to state and province to province here in Canada. If you have higher education and you pursued postgraduate education, it’s up to us to bring awareness around that for our clients, because the public just doesn’t know. So that’s what I mean by claim your education, claim your knowledge. That’s why I don’t have to charge what another aesthetician is charging because I’ve invested a lot in postgraduate education, traveling the globe to learn things, and I’m good at what I do.

Obviously, you’ve got to be able to prove it in your results that you accomplish for people too. It’s a given. It doesn’t help for you’re the best kept secret secrets. Secrets don’t help people understand your zone of genius. You got to be bold and say it. We’re very uncomfortable with that, I think. I’ve learned to just say it. Yes, I claim, I’m great at skin. If you have a skin issue, I can fix it. I am the skin genius. It’s my zone, right? I don’t mind claiming that, but it felt very uncomfortable even for me at the beginning, even as a strong personality.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s funny about credentials and what I like to call ‘credentialitis’, because women are more likely to think they have to have all these credentials, and in some cases, yeah, obviously, and anything to do with healthcare, medicine, these sorts of things, you do, you have to be qualified. But I think in lots of other spheres of entrepreneurship, women tend to think, “Oh, I’ve got to get all these degrees. I’ve got to get all this stuff. I’ve got to prove myself.” Whereas, a lot of guys just don’t even. They start doing it. They literally just hang their shingle and they are.

Rene Serbon:

100%. But that’s what I mean. I mean, if you were to see the wall behind me, you’d see all my fancy certificates, but it means nothing if I can’t convey the knowledge to a client and do the right thing in clinic. And we’re all not technically as strong in the treatment room either. That’s why I say “Know what you good at and do that.” I was a good waxer. I hated it, so my quality of work was never that great. You want to see a waxer who loves waxing. I didn’t care if it hurt because I don’t feel a thing. Yes, I used to joke with my clients like that all the time, but it’s like, yeah, I shouldn’t be doing that. It didn’t light my fire, corrective skincare does.

And that’s just why I say everybody needs that baseline of knowledge, okay? You need to learn how to write. You need to learn how to read, basically. It’s like learn the bike. But then you’ve got to put the hours in. It also doesn’t help to have all the book smarts but don’t how to actually make it happen in clinic. And that’s what my point of difference is even when I’m talking about education and working with a skincare line and stuff like that. I still grinded every week in my research clinic here. I like to get my hands dirty because I like to stay current and know how things work and have the experience. And so when I’m curating procedures for facials and how to do them in what order, of course I need to get my hands dirty, that’s part of the fun.

And that continuous education, I mean, gosh, I have certificates of attendance for a million things, but I think you’re naturally attracted if you’re a continuous learner. Of course, you’re in the loop of what’s going on in your industry. You don’t have to be the master of everything but you need to be up with the most up-to-date knowledge and at least be able to be part of the conversation when your clients come in and ask you about things going on in your industry street. You have to have an awareness at minimum. You can’t never continue learning. That’s when you fall behind and you get traded in. In my industry at least.

Melinda Wittstock:

Absolutely. Absolutely. There’s knowing your stuff, and there’s marketing your stuff, and you have to be good at both. I notice you have a background in both. Your education focused on marketing. So, you’re super dangerous, Rene, because you have both pieces of this puzzle, which is really important. So you can create the best product in the world or have the best service. But if no one knows about it, does it really exist? So this is really, really, really important.

I want to ask you a little bit about what’s next for your business. Where do you see it progressing?

Rene Serbon:

Well, yes, I can talk forever about this. This is the thing, I was just sharing that you can’t be the best-kept secret, and even though I am, I think, half decent at marketing, just as well I drop out of university because it’s not what I’m the best at, so I admittedly have people who help me with that now. But for me, it’s that vulnerable feeling of putting yourself out there and claiming what you’re good at and publicly saying it, so scary. So this year, because I’ve always been teaching, I have a free Facebook group that I love and like-minded women hang there and we’re very lovely, tight-knit community and tribe. I pride myself in gathering people around me who are supportive of each other, which is so important in the industry because it’s not the norm of our industry. I feel we’re a little bit edgy, competitive.

I’m a competitive person, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want others in my industry to also do really, really well. I believe we can all do very well, and that measuring stick is different for every individual. But it’s scary. It’s scary to put yourself out there, so I’ve been hanging secretly in the private Facebook group. So, this year, I am doing more of what I tell people to do. I’m great at doing that in clinic, that’s not an issue, but I’m being very brave and moving myself very publicly to the YouTube platform this year. So I’ll be hanging out there for all to see a little bit more, which feels super scary for me.

I’m very blessed. I do get to talk at conferences. I was supposed to be in Spain when COVID hit and then in Germany this year. So we’re doing a virtual conference in May that I’m speaking at for the International Association of Applied Corneatherapy, where I’m honored to serve on the Board of Education for them. And a few other speaking engagements because, obviously, you can hear I love speaking. So that’s really wonderful. I get to do more of that this year as well and just, yeah, putting myself out there, being brave, feeling super vulnerable and scared and grabbing the bull by the horns and doing it anyway.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. Well, I’d love to invite you to carry on the conversation with me over on my podcasting app Podopolo, which is fully interactive. And so, of the four and a half million podcasts we have over there, Wings of Inspired Business is one of them. And Rene, if you go and download the app, I can add you as a guest. And then if anyone listening to this podcast has any questions for you or wants to do business with you, or any of that good stuff, we can just keep this conversation going because, I mean, any woman listening to this, everyone wants to know about beauty. Everyone wants to know about beauty secrets and also what you’re doing just as a business. So, I’ll make sure that you have all the information to go do that and look forward to keeping the conversation going with you. I want to make sure, though, that people know where is the best place to find you and work with you.

Rene Serbon:

Well, I’m going to be hanging out and there’s a feedback loop that you have. And maybe one day when I’m feeling really brave, I will do a podcast and talk all skin and answer all the skin myths for people. One day. One day. It’s on the agenda. But first one step at a time for everybody, right? Rome wasn’t built in a day.

But where I would love for of people to come and find me is Instagram. I’m hanging on Instagram quite a lot these days. It’s just @reneserbon. Easy to find. That’s Rene with one E, because when you’re born in South Africa, you don’t know what you know until you know it, that it’s supposed to be too Es for a feminine [inaudible 00:49:09], so I have a boy Rene name. Reneserbonumer.com is my website and everything to everything is there. It’s like the place that you can find all the things about me and it will point you in the directions. All my socials are on there as well. So, if you can’t remember the Instagram handle, but everything is just Rene Serbon, reneserbon.com. I’m really easy to find, and I talk easily, so I’m not scary, feel free to message me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, that’s wonderful. You’ll do great on YouTube, and you would do great on a podcast. I always encourage everyone to do the podcast because people get to know you over time. It’s just a wonderful way of developing that kind of marketing know, like, trust in a really authentic way. So if you want to do that, absolutely. It’s a great, great, great, great way to get the information out about your business and just allow people to get to know you in a nice attraction marketing kind of way. And so, Rene, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today and carrying on the conversation over on Podopolo. Thank you.

Rene Serbon:

Thank you so much for having me, such an honor. And I look forward to hang out with you and continue the conversation on the other side.